Browse Items (16391 total)

Exemplifies the varieties and density of assonance in Chaucer's poetry, commenting on assonance in French, Italian, and English predecessors, and on Chaucer's uses of assonance in combination with other devices of sound and emphasis.

Argues that PhyT was designed to critique the Man of Law, an extension of the ancient "feud between law and medicine." Explores this tradition in classical and medieval sources, and identifies ways that Chaucer evoked it through adjustments to Livy…

Quotes an extended allusion (1579) to Chaucer by John Jones, physician. that comments on the poet's use of vernacular English and his moral probity.

Tallies various possible verbal plays on "Malyne" in RvT, including the "implication that her lineage or line is tainted."

Argues that in LGWP Chaucer derives his tone from Jean de Meun's self-conscious narratation in the "Roman de la Rose," as well as many "particularities . . . of himself as love and writer." Chaucer's narrator is a caricature of Jean's Amant, an…

Examines ways in which the dreamer's journey in HF parallels his summary of the "Aeneid," identifying verbal echoes as well as similarities in plot and detail. Emends traditional punctuation of lines 109-13 to reinforce the parallel.

Examines the "psychological realities" of Troilus's fear of losing Criseyde after she departs from Troy, comparing Chaucer's and Boccaccio's versions to show how, in TC, the hero's "immoderate fear distorts perception" and causes him to judge…

Justifies various differences between FrT and its analogues by attributing them to the literal mindedness of the narrator, "one who takes distinctions seriously."

Comments on Chaucer's "serious" poetry for the ways that it relates to various kinds of tragedy and tragic outlook--classical Greek, Boethian, "pathetic tragedy," ethical or moral tragedy, etc. Except in extreme cases such as MkT, Chaucer inflects…

Argues that in HF Chaucer achieves "symbolic cohesion" and unity by combining the narrator's Virgilian epiphany of a "higher sense of duty" (his response to the Aeneas/Dido exemplum) with the Boethian imagery of philosophical ascent (effected by the…

Commends BD for its reconciliation of extreme tones: despair derived from "earth-shattering sorrow" and "intellectual hope" derived from "heaven-sent consolation." Inspired by Bothus's "Consolation of Philosophy," Chaucer achieves consolation and…

Traces Chaucer's uses of two rhetorical devices of compression throughout his poetic career, "praeterito" and "reticentia," arguing that he developed sophisticated uses of the devices for creating dramatic and emotional effects. The devices entail,…

Progress report of the Chaucer Library Committee.

Surveys the literary tradition of the term "vavasour" and explores the implications of its use to describe the Franklin in GP. Focuses on encounters between vavasours and knights in French Arthurian romances, the juxtaposition of FranT and SqT, and…

Identifies Giglio Gregorio Giraldi's allusion (1551) to Chaucer as a vernacular poet.

Surveys critical approaches to Mel and discusses its themes of "the good woman" and forgiveness; also assesses Mel as a complex, multi-leveled allegory.

Describes the "literary attitudes" evident in Eustace Deschamps' "L'Art de Dictier," focusing on its concern with the "natural music" of lyric poetry, a concern also found among troubadour poets and in Chaucer's ballades and complaints, even though…

Tagmemic analysis of NPT that examines three of its "overlapping hierarchies" by shifting focus among them: the tale as a fable, the rhetorical elaboration of it, and the framing context of CT. Such analysis discloses the complex comedy of the tale.

Studies aspects of PhyT that derive from hagiography, particularly its emphasis on Virginia as a "virgin martyr," not found in Chaucer's sources. As a result of Chaucer's various changes and genre modifications, the tale raises "grave questions of…

Reads ClT as a "dramatization" of the teaching of St. James' epistle: the testing of faith "begets patience." Despite Walter's cruelty, he is God's "unwitting agent" in effecting Griselda's faith and obedience.

Reads the first three tales in CT as a gradated and "symmetrical" treatment of love that moves from the non-physical idealism of KnT to the mixture of emotion and action in MilT and on to the revenge and "physical realism" of RvT.

Argues that Chaucer's additions to his sources in PhyT (Virginia's speech and the reference to Jephthah's daughter) convey a sense of masculine blindness to feminine reality--seeing only the "transient conditions of beauty, youth, and virginity."

In TC, Chaucer shows the "inter-relatedness of the moral and the aesthetic" by demonstrating the "corruption and debasement" of key concepts: "honour," "worthiness," "gentilesse," "manhood," and "trouthe." Such debasement reflects the inevitable…

Argues that, while clearly discrediting summoners, the Friar "also discredits himself." Reads FrT as a exemplum that satirizes summoners and, ironically, condemns the Friar's malicious hypocrisy, especially clear in light of contemporary sermon…

Tallies books and articles pertaining to Chaucer--ones in progress, completed, and/or published in 1972.